[gnode]

From reading your other comment "you can pull things over a network without a web browser...", your argument appears to be: we could have a separate platform from the browser for running web applications, and lose the need for the browser to support applications. Correct me if I misunderstood.

A benefit of applications in the browser is that they share and benefit from the same security policy decisions which are made for web pages. I think the closest thing to what you're suggesting is mobile apps, which don't always compare favourably. Users are often coerced into giving up unnecessary permissions, and they have less control over the user experience (can't block ads or change styles).

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

> we could have a separate platform from the browser for running web applications, and lose the need for the browser to support applications.

Yes. And the benefit of that is that it building a new WASI implementation is almost certainly going to be much easier than building a new web browser currently is. If web browsers were to revert to being simple hypertext renderers, then those would be orders of magnitude easier to implement as well.

> Users are often coerced into giving up unnecessary permissions

How is that different from the web?

> and they have less control over the user experience (can't block ads or change styles).

If I have control over who the WASI VM can and cannot talk to, I can block ads using exactly the same mechanism that is used today. Styling would depend on precisely what interface ends up in common use to render graphics for WASI applications, it is totally possible to style native widgets or something like QT/GTK. You can't style anything that uses a canvas regardless.